Amazon celebrates 10 years of Kindle with waterproof Oasis

The redesigned Kindle Oasis lets you listen to your books on your wireless headphones or Bluetooth speakers in addition to being waterproof. Image: Amazon

Amazon.com introduced the new Kindle Oasis on Wednesday, as it celebrates a decade of the iconic device. The latest e-reader by Amazon supports audiobooks from the Audible platform and is now waterproof with IPX8 certification. It starts at $249.99 and it starts shipping at the end of the month.

There are only so many features the tech giant can add to its e-readers before taking away their true essence and basically make them some sort of Fire tablet hybrids. Water resistance is a nice touch, and audiobook support certainly makes for aggregated value.

Amazon has been looking to diversify recently with more and more smart home devices, so more traditional tech enthusiasts must be glad to see the company has not forgotten about them or their roots. The Kindle family remains one of the few places where Alexa does not work just yet.

What are the Kindle Oasis’ new features?

For a Kindle, the new Oasis packs a rich set of new features that were previously unavailable in other versions of the device. Starting with the build quality, the Oasis is now made out of aluminum, which makes it even lighter than the best-selling Kindle Paperwhite.

The design is also ergonomic for readers to hold it comfortably over long stretches of time, and its 7-inch screen with 300 ppi resolution makes letters crisp and clear even in bright sunlight. Ambient sensors also adjust the brightness of the display automatically according to the lighting of the room or space you’re in.

Of course, the IPX8 certification means that now you can also take your e-reader further than ever before, as it now withstands from mere water splashes and puddle drops to deep dives up to two meters in fresh water. It can also resist submerged for up to 60 minutes.

As for the reading experience, there are a couple of features that will also make their way into the Paperwhite like the new font sizes and bold settings. People will be able to graduate font boldness using five different levels and choose from more font sizes too.

Other less notorious but equally cool additions to the Kindle include color inversion for low-light settings, which means you can now switch to a dark background and light letters. Readers will also get to align text on the right, in case they are used to reading that way or grow accustomed to it.

Being a device that supports audiobook playback, the Oasis comes in two storage configurations: 8 GB for $249.99 or 32 GB for $279.99. For now, it only works with Amazon’s Audible, so you can only listen to books in their collection. Good news is that you can also pair your Kindle with your Bluetooth speakers.